Category: Today

July 3 marks the 1947 birthday of Dave Barry (pictured), American columnist and author.

Five years later on the same date, Puerto Rico’s Constitution was approved by the Congress of the United States.

On July 2, 1776, the Continental Congress un-tabled the Lee Resolution and voted to sever ties with the Kingdom of Great Britain.

One year later, to the day, Vermont became the first American territory to abolish slavery.

On July 1, 1766, François-Jean de la Barre, a young French nobleman, was tortured and beheaded before his body was burnt on a pyre along with a copy of Voltaire’s Dictionnaire philosophique nailed to his torso for the crime of not saluting a Roman Catholic religious procession in Abbeville, France.

On June 30, 1801, Frédéric Bastiat was born. Bastiat became one of the most important French Liberal School economists, following Condilliac and Jean-Baptiste Say, best known for his books Economic Harmonies and Economic Sophisms and two monographs, “The Seen and the Unseen,” and “The Law.” He was a brilliant stylist and perceptive critic of state-managed trade. His influence on conservative, libertarian and “limited-government thought” has been vast.

The emergency number of “999” was introduced in London, June 30, 1937, the first of its kind — arguably the best innovation in better government service in modern times.

On June 29, 1914, the day after the shooting of the Archduke Ferdinand and his wife, Austrian interrogations confirmed that the Serbian government was behind the assassination. Serbia denied involvement.

Thus continued the series of events that led to “The Great War,” now known as “World War I.”

June 28 birthdays include that of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, philosopher, in 1712.

On this date in 1914, 19-year-old Gavril Princip assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austrian throne, and the Archduke’s wife Sophie. The Archduke had earlier missed a bomb thrown at his car, which necessitated a change in the motorcade route, which the driver forgot, which is why the car paused at the precise intersection in which Princip fired his fatal shots.

The shooting began a series of events that led to “The Great War,” now known as “World War I.”

On June 28, 1992, the Constitution of Estonia was signed into law.